More than the Gladioli Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dame Edna Everage

When Edna first appeared onstage in 1956, she was a simple housewife, used as a foil for satirising suburbia. Edna's ever-present gladioli were typical of a 1950s Melbourne garden - a plant grown to recall an English country garden, not an Australian species. Mrs Norm Everage (a play on normal average) epitomised, in Humphries' eyes, the boring bland world, full of nostalgia for a past that never really existed, which he saw surrounding himself as a youth.

In his university years, he adapted his fondness for creating characters and performing them to elicit laughter into a passion for Dada. A number of the performances and pranks from that era, both those for which he was solely responsible and those involving a like-minded group, have become almost folklore in Melbourne.

After leaving the University of Melbourne, he joined the Melbourne Theatre Company, where Edna made her first appearance in a 1955 sketch called 'Olympic Hostess' which lampooned the growing excitement about the upcoming Olympic Games, staged in Melbourne the following year.

Answer: Dame Edna Everage

Humphries had expected that the character would only have local Melbourne appeal, but discovered, after moving to Sydney, that audiences there also loved the character, which started to develop a full-blown persona beyond that of the original sketch. Over the years, she evolved from Housewife through Superstar and Megastar to Gigastar, gaining in self-professed celebrity as she became known more widely around the world.

Humphries moved to London in 1959, and included Edna in his one-man revues, which he continued to perform even while participating in a range of stage productions. These included playing Mr Sowerberry, the undertaker, in the original London production of 'Oliver!' and the villainous Fagin in several revivals. During this time, the focus of the humour in Edna's shows became more universal. Rather than suburbia, Humphries turned his attention to the celebrity world, class relationships, and politics. She never lost touch with her roots, hence the use of this greeting to the audience, but did become increasingly (and with no apparent self-awareness) extravagant as she became more worldly.

In 1972 Edna had a small part as the aunt of the title character in the film 'The Adventures of Barry McKenzie', one of three characters Humphries played in the film, for which he also c-wrote the script. At the very end of the sequel, 'Barry McKenzie Holds His Own', the Australian Prime Minister bestowed the title of Dame on the character, and Dame Edna was born.

Answer: Dame Edna Everage

As Edna moved onto the world stage, and transformed from a suburban housewife into an international celebrity, her appearance became increasingly flamboyant and readily identified. Her television shows usually took the form of a conversation with guests, who often seemed to find it difficult to avoid noticing her outlandish appearance. Her hair, which had started with the kind of pastel rinse popular with women of a certain age at that time to make their grey hair look more interesting, became a brilliant purple (or occasionally green). She added oversized, spectacularly glittered glasses and a wardrobe of clothes based on kitsch Australian symbols - koalas, the boxing kangaroo (think QANTAS), the Sydney Opera House, and the gladioli that inspired the title of this quiz.

The gladioli were not only found on her clothing, they were also regularly presented to her at the start of a show by her assistant Madge Allsop (played by Emily Perry until her death in 2008), described as having been Edna's New Zealand-born bridesmaid.

Answer: Sir Les Patterson

Barry Humphries first performed as Les Patterson in 1974, as part of a one-man show he presented at a club in the Sydney suburb of Kogarah. The character was only briefly on stage, as he introduced the feature act for the show, Dame Edna. The two characters became staples of his repertoire, with each sometimes the feature act with the other doing the introductory segment. It says something for the club's staff and patrons that most members of the audience seem to have believed the claim that this drunken boor was an official from the club presenting the evening's entertainment!

When Barry Humphries spent two weeks presenting a show in a Hong Kong hotel later that year, he worked on developing a fuller character, starting by upgrading his status to "Australia's cultural attaché to the Far East", and adding a knighthood to his biography. One hopes the international audience appreciated the irony of a foul-mouthed man who always appeared to have slept in the wrinkled suit with half-untied necktie he wore, with a drink in his hand, being a cultural attaché.

Sir Les's career in the diplomatic corps later included appointments in culture-related positions to the Court of St James and the United States. Amazingly, international diplomatic relations survived!

Answer: Sir Les Patterson

The adjectives one might use to describe Sir Les include these, and more pejoratives such as vulgar, lecherous, loudmouthed - you get the picture. His bile-filled opinion pieces, accompanied by spitting as punctuation, make him both an exaggeration of a popular stereotype of the Australian male and a criticism of that persona. Given how Barry Humphries considered the average Australian, as seen through both Edna and Les, it is little wonder that he decided to spend most of his life in England!

While Edna and Les alternated as stars of the live stage shows, Edna's television success meant that character was always their focus, but Sir Les Patterson often appeared in a pre-recorded segment. Over the years, he identified himself in a galaxy of non-existent public service positions, none of which would have been appropriate for him, and many of which he could not pronounce properly. The earliest one described in Humphries' shows was from around 1960: working in the Office of Custom and Excise (Literature Division). It is hard to imagine how he handled being on the Government Select Committee into the High Incidence of Transvestism in the Yartz (his pronunciation of arts, for which he also claimed to have been a federal minister). One hopes his role as an etiquette and protocol advisor to the Australian Federal Government had little impact.

Answer: Barry McKenzie

Barry Humphries is best known for the characters he performs in his one-man shows, but Barry McKenzie was actually created in 1964 as a cartoon in the British magazine 'Private Eye'. He was, however, based on a performance character, a surfer named Buster Thompson. When Peter Cook, who owned 'Private Eye' heard a recording of a performance that included Buster, he suggested it could be developed into a cartoon that would suit his magazine. Barry Humphries wrote the material, and the drawings were by Nicholas Garland.

Barrington Bradman Bing McKenzie, known as Barry, had a blast carousing his way around London in the Swinging Sixties. He incorporated all the worst features of the Australian youth who flocked there at the time, making their big overseas trip to see the wide world after finishing their schooling. With no desire to learn about the culture or sights of the country he was visiting, he concentrated on alcohol and sex, becoming loud and inclined to brawl when intoxicated. But he was also childishly naive, open and friendly to everyone, unlike the uptight Brits he kept meeting.

The cartoon ran for several years, and the published strips were collected into three books, which were banned in Australia because they were found to have their humour based on indecency. By 1988, standards had changed, and a single volume including the three earlier books and some previously unpublished strips was available in Australia. 'The Complete Barry McKenzie: Not so Much a Legendary Strip, More a Resonant Social History Per Se' included a preface by Sir Les Patterson.

Answer: Barry McKenzie

Barry McKenzie hit the big screen in a 1972 film starring Australian singer Barry Crocker in the title role, and featured Barry Humphries in three roles, including an appearance in the guise of Edna Everage as Barry's aunt. 'The Adventures of Barry McKenzie', based on the first book collecting the 'Private Eye' cartoons, was set in England. A 1974 sequel was set in France.

Despite the fact that the books of the cartoons had been banned, the films had significant financial support from the Australian government. While the John Gorton led the government during filming of the first film, it was Gough Whitlam's government that supported the second one, in which the Prime Minister appeared as the end to award Barry's aunt a damehood.

These films brought a number of Australianisms to international attention, including a variety of expressions (some more printable than others) relating to bodily functions. These include referring to vomiting as a technicolour yawn, or as chundering. The Men at Work song 'Down Under' was apparently inspired by the character, and the lyrics of that song do seem to fit him.

Answer: Sandy Stone

The other three characters (selected as the most familiar to a world audience from a much larger number) are over the top, taking their concept ever further as they developed over the years. Sandy Stone is different, in that he is a gentle character, one who has been described as a decent man - not exciting, but more like an everyman character than the others.

He first appeared as a character in a short story, 'Sandy Stone's Big Week', written under the pseudonym H. Grahame. This was published in a Canberra magazine in 1958. Humphries has said that Sandy was inspired by a childhood neighbour, of whom he clearly has fond memories. While Sandy has never been the star of a one-man show, he has often made an appearance, usually telling stories based on the kind of incident you might associate with a family reunion, such as a relative having to pack up and move to a residential care home, or how a family coped with the drowning death of their youngest. These ostensibly boring stories, delivered in a drone, nevertheless packed a heap of pathos into the segment, and provided a nice counterpoint to the more rambunctious characters in the show.

Answer: Sandy Stone

Sandy always appears in a dressing gown, usually holding a hot water bottle as he sits in a rocking chair and tells his story. Although Humphries designated him Australia's most boring man, he clearly has a deep affection for the character, and used him to explore his own responses to life's vicissitudes.

In a 2016 interview, he said, "slowly the character has deepened, so I begin to understand and appreciate him, and finally feel myself turning into him". By that stage, he no longer needed much makeup to look like a man of an appropriate age - he was 60 years older than he was when he first came up with the concept of the character, and far better equipped to understand Sandy, and provide a sympathetic portrayal.

Answer: Dame Edna Everage

More than 60 years after her first appearance, and making a comeback after a 2012 retirement, Dame Edna Everage gatecrashed the royal box at the 2019 Royal Variety Performance, making the performance up close and personal. After Humphries had moved someone out of Edna's way, she leaned over the balcony to take applause as Charles and Camilla (no titles necessary for such good friends) had a laugh at her. Barely had she taken a seat than a gentleman entered the box and handed her a card.

She looked at it, then announced, "They've found me a better seat," and departed. Short but sweet - and only someone who was truly a gigastar could have pulled it off.